The Hindu : Front Page : Jail no bar to philanthropy

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Saturday, Jul 05, 2008
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Jail no bar to philanthropy

P. Sudhakar

— Photo: A. Shaikmohideen

Meeting needs: S. Milleth Ismail presenting a generator to a school in Tirunelveli on Friday.

TIRUNELVELI: Though prisons are considered places to serve sentence, the heavily guarded enclosures continue to refine lives and change attitude of convicts like S. Milleth Ismail of Kurichikulam.

When he was lodged in Palayamkottai Central Prison in January 1991 for a murder, he was only 19 years old and was studying in an Industrial Training Institute. Though he found the new atmosphere intolerable at first, the surroundings and wedlock during one of the paroles started refining him gradually.

“The long years in jail brought about a change in me. I wanted peace and started working towards it,” he, a father of two girls, says.

After five persons were murdered owing to enmity between two families of Velloor and Vaithyalingapuram near Srivaikuntam in Tuticorin district, he met the accused in prison and brokered peace. “Now, the once bitter enemies have become relatives through two marriages,” Mr. Milleth says. Whenever he comes out on parole, through his ‘Minnal Trust,’ being managed by his friends in his absence, he distributes welfare measures and donates blood along with his friends.

“A refrigerator to Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital, notebooks to poor students of Kurichikulam, 2,000-watt generator, a motor, polyvinyl overhead tank with 3,000 litre capacity and 18 taps to Kallanai Corporation Girls’ Higher Secondary School, rice and other essential commodities to flood victims in last March have been given so far after our non-governmental organisation came into being,” he says.

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